The perfect roasted broccoli

One of my favorite Rev customers is America's Test Kitchens. The videos are very interesting, and if they weren't paying me to caption them, I would have to pay them to watch them.  I grab them up whenever I can.  Yesterday, there was a stream of them flowing into my work queue, so I did one after another, enjoying every single one. 

I've been roasting broccoli for about 30 years and thought I knew how to do it, but one of the ATK videos revealed some secrets to the perfect roasted broccoli, and I realized I've been doing it wrong.  I bought some broccoli yesterday and could hardly wait to roast it today.  I followed the ATK method exactly, and the end result was, as promised, perfect.

At least I thought so.  But Mike ate a piece and said, "It's usually crunchier on the florets. Did you season it?"  This made me question the perfection.  So I hunted Sarah down and made her try it and give her opinion.  She said, "This is not as good as usual.  It needs cooked longer."  So I took some out to enjoy myself, hit the rest with a little garlic salt and put it back in the oven for Mike and Sarah.  

In case you're wondering, this is the technique for perfection.  Heat the oven to 500.  Yes, 500!  I've never asked my oven to go that high.  While it's pre-heating, put the empty pan in to heat. The other secret is to add 1/2 tsp of sugar to the broccoli to aid in carmelization.  For me, perfect was 11 minutes.  For everyone else, it was more like 40 minutes.